Shakur Stevenson and his new promoter, Eddie Hearn, are looking to take the backdoor route to a fight against the Face of Boxing Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, with a match against the down-and-out Joe Cordina and potentially William Zepeda.
The Lingering Stain of the De Los Santos Fight
A dark cloud still follows Shakur from his questionable win over Edwin De Los Santos last November. That was a fight in which the judges gave Shakur a 12-round unanimous decision win despite him not landing anything.
There should be an asterisk next to Shakur’s win in the record books from the De Los Santos because he did not win it in the eyes of the fans and not with me.
The Nevada judges’ scores were 115-113, 116-112 and 116-112. I watched the fight and had De Los Santos winning 8-4. It was impossible to give Shakur more than four rounds because he wasn’t engaging and retreating all around the ring the entire night.
The crowd at ringside at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was loudly booing the fight from the third round, and they got louder as the fight wore into the later rounds.
Hearn’s Calculated Manipulation
Hearn is trying to craftily maneuver Shakur into a fight with Tank Davis in 2025 by feeding him the recently knocked-out Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs). He even put the match on PPV on October 12th in Riyadh.
It’s a sneaky way to maneuver Shakur into a massive fight against Tank that he hasn’t earned and has no chance of winning.
It’s a cash-out for Shakur, just like Hearn set up his Matchroom fighter Edgar Berlanga for a similar money fight he can’t win against Canelo Alvarez.
The Matchroom promoter Hearn is trying to set the table for the Tank-Shakur fight by making Shakur look golden by beating Cordina. Four months ago, Cordina resembled a punching bag in his eighth-round knockout loss to Anthony Cacace on May 18th.
Unfortunately, Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) still has unfinished business with Edwin De Los Santos, which he should take care of first before moving on to the next stage of earning a fight against Tank Davis, the #1 fighter in the lightweight division.
The boxing community believes De Los Santos was robbed in his fight against Shakur last November 16th, as they saw no real punches landed other than keep-away shots that had no power.
De Los Santos landed the more significant blows in all 12 rounds of the fight, and he looked like he’d done more than enough to earn the victory.
To earn a fight against Tank Davis in the proper sense, Shakur needs to raise his stock, which is lower than low right now after three lackluster performances in his last four fights.
Casual boxing fans aren’t familiar with Shakur because his fights create no buzz, and hardcore fans dislike him greatly. They abhor Shakur and view him as a cheap knockoff of an old Mayweather in his later years.
The Price of a Fight Against Tank Davis
- Edwin De Los Santos
- William Zepeda
- Vasily Lomachenko
- Abdullah Mason
